School of Humanities

Welcome to the School of Humanities
Whether you are a visitor to Rice, or a past, current or future Rice student, or a member of our faculty and staff, this site is your guide to the humanities at Rice.

Research & Creative Works

Faculty at Rice pursue research, teaching, and service. As a research university, Rice's mission is to create new knowledge. Faculty in the School of Humanities create new knowledge in the form of books, articles, artworks, and more. We disseminate that knowledge by publishing or exhibiting our work.

Student Life

The School of Humanities at Rice University is a top liberal arts college rolled into a research university. Its small scale, combined with its research focus, brings advantages to both the undergraduates and to the graduate students in its five PhD-granting departments.

News & Events

Want to catch an art exhibition, listen to a scholar of great renown give a talk, or see a play? Look here for short- and long-term events and milestones. Check our events calendar for what to do tonight.

Support the School of Humanities

School of Humanities

Welcome to the School of Humanities
Whether you are a visitor to Rice, or a past, current or future Rice student, or a member of our faculty and staff, this site is your guide to the humanities at Rice.

Research & Creative Works

Faculty at Rice pursue research, teaching, and service. As a research university, Rice's mission is to create new knowledge. Faculty in the School of Humanities create new knowledge in the form of books, articles, artworks, and more. We disseminate that knowledge by publishing or exhibiting our work.

Student Life

The School of Humanities at Rice University is a top liberal arts college rolled into a research university. Its small scale, combined with its research focus, brings advantages to both the undergraduates and to the graduate students in its five PhD-granting departments.

News & Events

Want to catch an art exhibition, listen to a scholar of great renown give a talk, or see a play? Look here for short- and long-term events and milestones. Check our events calendar for what to do tonight.

The best questions are those whose answers we don’t yet know. When the student asks the question—whether in a class or independently—he or she has taken the first step toward undergraduate research.

Humanities students carry out original research over a semester or year in a variety of contexts:

in an advanced course in the regular curriculum of a humanities department or center (e.g. any HIST 400-level course)

in some internships or practica

in a year-long thesis writers’ seminar held in a humanities department or center, by application only and for honors in a major (e.g. ENGL 494 and 495; GERM 493 and 494; HART 402 and 403; HIST 403 and 404; PHIL 411 and 412; RELI 400; SPPO 495)

If appropriate, they travel to conduct or present research, for which funding is available. Sometimes students develop previous research they have done into a new project; sometimes they start completely fresh. Whatever forum for research a student may choose, the first step is to start talking to faculty about possible research interests. Faculty members can help you, or guide you to a colleague who can.

Here are a few examples of recent major research projects or creative works by undergraduate students:

Title: “Black and the Box It Came In”: Identity and Notions of Inauthenticity in 21st-Century African-American Literature and Film
Year: 2016
Major: English
Faculty Mentor: Nicole Waligora-Davis

Title: “The Image of Guinevere from the Middle Ages to the Twenty-first Century.”
Year: 2016
Major: French Studies
Faculty Mentor: Deborah Nelson-Campbell, Associate Professor of French Studies, Department of Classical and European Languages

Title: “Liberation through Rhyme: The Use of Rap and U.S. Black Culture in the Afro-Descendant Communities of Cuba and Nicaragua.”
Year: 2016
Major: Latin American Studies
Faculty Mentor: Luis Duno-Gottberg, Associate Professor, Department of Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American Studies
Notes: This year-long thesis was based on field research in Nicaragua and Cuba, and the student completed it concurrently for the Latin American Studies major and for the Rice Undergraduate Scholars Program (RUSP). With funding from the latter, the student also presented her research at the 2016 national conference of the Latin American Studies Association. This student is currently a consultant in the consumer goods industry and plans to earn an MBA in the future.

Title: “Negotiating Horizons: Homonationalism, Nostalgia, and Queer Futurity in Transnational Amsterdam”
Year: 2016
Major: Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Faculty Mentor: Cymene Howe, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Affiliated Faculty in the Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality
Notes: This thesis was based on fieldwork in Amsterdam. Its author won the prize for best thesis from the Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, and is currently earning a Ph.D. in anthropology at New York University.

Title: “Points of Contact: Feminism and Contact Improvisation Dance”
Year: 2013
Major: Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Faculty Mentor: Lora Wildenthal, Professor of History and Affiliated Faculty in the Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality
Notes: After teaching high school English for a couple of years, this student is now completing law school at the University of Texas.

Title: “Reimagining Monarchy: George IV and the Symbolism of Architecture at Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace”
Year: 2013
Major: History
Faculty Mentor: Aysha Pollnitz, Assistant Professor of History
Notes: This student is currently earning a Ph.D. in history from Cambridge University in the U.K.

Title: “Remembering and Forgetting Salvador Allende: An Examination of Institutional Memories in Post-Authoritarian Chile”
Year: 2016
Major: History
Faculty Mentor: Moramay López-Alonso, Associate Professor of History
Notes: This project was based on field research in Chile. Its author, who also conducted research as a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Research Fellow, won the Ira and Patricia Gruber Award for Best Honors Thesis from the Department of History.

Title: “Revolution and Relocation: An Analysis of the Disillusionment of Tunisian Youths with the Tunisian Revolution and their Desire to Relocate to the Islamic State.”
Year: 2016
Major: Religion
Faculty Mentor: David Cook, Associate Professor of Religion